Command Comfort Blog : Posts Tagged ‘Heating Repair’

With the beautiful weather in Huntington Beach that often stretches through the winters, scheduling repairs for your home’s heating system often drifts far from your mind. How often to you really need that heater working, after all?

But when you stop and consider it, you’ll discover that your heater does a lot more work than you realize—in particular those times when you least expect cold weather. June can be a surprising month in Southern California, and winter often brings stormy weeks when a good heating system working for you, especially at night, is essential for your comfort.

So as we move toward the summer, our staff at Command A/C would like to remind you about scheduling heating repair in Huntington Beach, CA if you have any troubles gnawing at your furnace or heat pump. There are some good reasons not to delay these repairs, no matter how pleasant the weather.

Reason #1: You’ll save money

If you have a heating system running with a malfunction, whether a worn-down heat pump blower motor or a dirty furnace burner, it will drain extra power in order to reach its expected level of operation. To get the heat level you want, you’ll end up paying more. Every time you need to switch on the heater for a few hours during a June gloom night, you’ll waste money. Taking care of those heating repairs will start saving money immediately.

Reason #2: You’ll have less risk of an unpleasant breakdown

Any heating system breakdown is an unpleasant one. But the worst sort of breakdown is the one that happens on the first day of cold weather during the winter… the moment when you need the heater the most. Chances are high that many other homeowners will have the same problem that day, making scheduling a convenient appointment with repair technicians difficult. You can avoid this with a basic preventive repair long before you actually need to have your heater working for you.

Reason #3: You’ll avoid more expensive repairs later on

Malfunctions inside a heater tend to be insidious: they start to spread as they put more of the heating system under stress. As long as a repair need goes without attention, it will start to grow worse and cause other systems to malfunction. You can expect that when you finally get around to those repairs (maybe when the heater breaks down?) they will cost much than they would’ve if you had jumped on them earlier.

It’s a simple thing to schedule heating repair in Huntington Beach, CA now: call up Command A/C and talk to one of our friendly staff members. We can arrange a fast and effective repair for whatever ails your heater.

You will need to use your heater much less than your air conditioner if you live in Long Beach, so you want to make sure you get the most economical use out of it. Having to schedule heating repairs because of avoidable problems will make your bills much higher. Unfortunately, many people make simple errors that increase the risk of these malfunctions.

But simple errors have simple corrections: here are some tips from the professionals at Command A/C for how you can keep away unnecessary repairs on your heating system in Long Beach, CA:

Change the filter regularly: For furnaces and heat pumps, an air filter protects the internal components from debris such as dust. Should the filter become too clogged (which it will eventually if it is not changed), it will not only begin to restrict airflow into the unit, it will also begin to allow contaminants inside. This can cause many types of damage, from burnt out motors to bent fan blades to dirty coils. You should change the filter once a month during periods when the heater is working regularly.

Avoid overworking the system: It’s common for southern California residents to turn up their heat too high for the brief times they use it because they think this will cause the heat to rise faster. However, it only keeps the heat running longer until it reaches the target temperature, and this is stressful for the heater and will make it run down faster. Maintain a steady lower temperature during periods of cold—the low 70s is a good point—and also add an extra layer of clothing during modest low temperatures and keep the heater off.

Schedule yearly maintenance: Having your heater regularly maintained is the best way to keep it running with a minimum of repair needs. Quality heating contractors will offer a program that provides you with two maintenance visits a year—one for your heater and one for your AC—that will clean, adjust, and tune-up your system so that it will run without excess stress. Maintenance techs will catch potential repairs early and fix them. You will end up with a heater that lasts for many years with only a few repairs.

Command A/C can help!

You can start with maintenance right now with a call to Command A/C. If you sign up for our Ultimate Service Agreement, you’ll receive two precision tune-ups a year, a 15% discount on all service repairs, and priority service. You can also count on our staff at Command A/C to bring you quality repairs for your heating system in Long Beach, CA when necessary.

The weather in Long Beach is almost as wonderful as you can find in the Continental United States. We have warm summers that only occasionally reach uncomfortable highs, and winters that hover around mere ten degrees colder on average than the summers.

With this kind of balmy climate, it seems odd that you should think about your home’s heating system—but heating still matters here, as we’ll explain. For the heating repair service in Long Beach, CA that will make every day wonderful, call Command A/C.

Yes, it can get cold here

With an average winter high in the upper 60s, Long Beach is a perfect vacation escape. However, the average low during that same time is the mid-40s, mostly during the evenings. That’s cold enough for most homes to need heaters, especially houses with large windows or inferior insulation. Occasionally, the temperature can take some surprising plunges. The record low for winter is a chilly, sub-freezing 25°F, and the high-30s can strike at almost any time during the season. You can’t expect it to always be sunny and warm, so make sure you have a solid heating system.

We need to take special notice of our heaters

Paradoxically, the less we use our heaters, the more careful we have to be about maintaining them. In a region of the U.S. with heavy winters, homeowners use their heaters often enough to pick up on repair needs quickly and respond to them. In a climate like Long Beach, it’s easy to ignore a malfunction in a heater and let it slide, hoping for the next warm day. This can mean getting caught off-guard when the heater suddenly breaks down from neglect.

We need heating efficiency as much as anyone

No matter how much you operate your heating system each year, you don’t want to pay more than you have to when it runs. If you don’t take good care of your heating system with maintenance and prompt repairs, it will waste money each time you turn it on, often without you realizing it because you aren’t as used to watching carefully over your heating bills.

It’s true that you aren’t likely to encounter the kind of heating malfunction emergency that people would in places that can endure three-day ice storms. But a heating emergency is uncomfortable to wait through and expensive to repair. It’s important to keep your heater working at its best for whenever you need it, so call for heating repair in Long Beach, CA as soon as you notice a malfunction, and enroll in a regular maintenance program so that you’ll have your yearly check-ups taken care of.

Call Command A/C to help keep your heater healthy. Ask about our Ultimate Service Club: it’s not only a yearly check-up on your heater, but also a check-up on your air conditioner… and you don’t need us to tell you how much that matters!

Your heater just broke down! Aren’t you glad you live in Long Beach, CA? The wait for the repair technicians won’t feel quite so miserable than if you lived in Minneapolis, MN or Pierre, South Dakota. But yes, it’s still a nuisance when a heater breaks down and you need to call for repairs (or, in some cases, even get a full replacement).

You can avoid heating system breakdowns in the future with a bit of knowledge about why your heater just stopped working. Here are some of the reasons your heater probably broke down. (Although, before you start reading them, you should really contact a Long Beach, CA heating repair company like Command A/C and get those repairs scheduled. We can help you out with our superb repair services.)

Here are some reasons your heater might have broken down:

It’s too old

If your heater has met or exceeded its manufacturer’s estimated lifetime, then it is probably too worn down to run anymore. It’s excellent that it got this far—but it may be time for a replacement.

You’ve left a malfunction go too long without repairs

Sometimes it is easier to ignore a malfunction than to deal with it. Maybe the problem will just go away. But that’s rarely the case, especially with complex mechanical devices. If you’ve heard strange noises from your furnace cabinet or heat pump, noticed uneven heating, or detected odd smells from the vents, but didn’t call for inspection and repairs, then the problem probably grew until it reached this point of shutdown. Always call for prompt repairs whenever you sense anything wrong.

It hasn’t received maintenance in a long time

This is a big one: heating systems require a yearly inspection and tune-up to make sure they are running properly and aren’t developing serious repair requirements. They’re no different than cars this way. If you let your heater go for a few years without regular preventive maintenance, the wear and tear will almost certainly cause it to malfunction and stop working. Fortunately, it’s never too late to start with maintenance. Once you’ve got this repair done, sign up for a maintenance program with a local HVAC company.

Even though you live in a warm climate, you still need a heater on those cold nights and occasional cold days. Don’t let your needs for heating repair service in Long Beach, CA go without attention. Contact Command A/C before you reach the breakdown stage. Sign up for our Ultimate Service club to receive regular maintenance as well as other benefits, like a 15% discount on service repairs.

If you live in Southern California, you’ll probably be fast off the blocks to call a repair professional when you start noticing unusual behavior from your air conditioner. But since you use your heater far less, you may not move so fast when it starts to signal that it needs expert attention.

However, you don’t want to end up without a heater on the coldest day of the year. If you don’t get heating repair done in a timely manner, you can expect that the first moment your heater breaks down will be an inconvenient one—a time when you have to make it do extra work. We don’t want you to go through the hassle of scheduling emergency heating repair services in Newport Beach, CA, so we’re going to give you tips on how to tell when you need repairs—before they become emergencies.

The heater won’t turn on: There are a few simple reasons your heater might not start: an incorrectly set thermostat, a disconnection from a power source. But if no simple scenario accounts for the heater’s failure, or if your heater makes clicking noises as it tries to start, then the problem is more serious and will require an expert in HVAC technology to diagnose and repair it.

The heater makes loud, strange sounds: If you notice a change from the normal operating noise in your heater, it might be a warning sign of repair needs. Some culprits for loud noises include dirty burners, loose motor parts, cracked fan belts, worn motor bearings, or a gas leak. Take particular note of that last reason: if you have a gas-powered furnace, you do not want to try to find the source of the trouble yourself. There is too elevated a risk of explosion or carbon monoxide poisoning.

Your gas bills make an unexpected jump: Your heating system can appear to function normally, with a good level of warmth and no strange noises, and yet still have malfunctions that make it work harder. If you notice a spike in your energy bills you can’t explain, then your heater may have experienced a loss in efficiency. Professionals can perform tests to see if your system is at fault for the cost increase, and then locate the specific cause and come up with solutions.

Heating repair professionals don’t just come armed with knowledge and skills that you don’t have; they also come armed with the best tools and the ability to use them. Modern heaters are complex machines, and you should leave their repairs to experts, such as the ones on staff at Command A/C. We’ve got your Newport Beach, CA heating repair woes covered!